White Sox will visit for opener

The Journal Sentinel staff

Chandler, Ariz. The Milwaukee Brewers announced that the team will open its 1995 regular season with a home game against the Chicago White Sox at 1 p.m. April 26 at County Stadium.

The following afternoon, April 27, the Brewers will travel to Chicago to face the White Sox at Comiskey Park.

The rest of the schedule, like just about everything else in major-league baseball this spring, is still undecided.

Sources close to the situation said the final schedule could be finished Wednesday.

Under the original schedule, the Brewers would have been playing their second game of the season Wednesday in California. Instead, members of the 40-man roster will report for an optional workout Wednesday afternoon.

Jeff Eisenberg, the Brewers' vice president in charge of ticket sales, said tickets for the original home opener April 10 against the Angels would be honored for the new opening day.

"We are going to honor all tickets from April 10," Eisenberg said. "All of those tickets will be good for admission as well as seat location. We've got about 25,000 of those tickets paid for and distributed."

Eisenberg said parking passes and tailgate permits for April 10 also will be valid for opening day. What won't be valid is a ticket dated April 26.

Not including season-ticket holders, Eisenberg said that only "a couple hundred" seats had been sold for the April 26 game. Fans holding those tickets as well as tickets for any of the other six canceled games from April 10 to April 25 can get a refund or exchange them for any other game, including opening day, based on availability.

"We're holding similar seat locations. We'll try to accommodate people as much as possible," Eisenberg said. "We plan to call all of the people holding tickets for the canceled games and explain their options to them. Flexibility will rule."

The Brewers' revised schedule will consist of 144 games 72 home and 72 away. Of the 20 games canceled, six were home and 13 were away. Although the new schedule will closely resemble the one released in December, there will be some alterations.

"We have 1.6 million of the old schedules out right now," Eisenberg said. "We're going to have to make revised ones. I don't know how we are going to mark them, but we want to avoid confusion as much as possible."

Although the new schedule is certain to cause numerous headaches for folks in the Brewers' ticket office, there are at least two advantages to the new opening day. First, the two-week delay could result in warmer temperatures for players and fans.

Second, the game is against the White Sox, arguably the Brewers' biggest rival, and could potentially draw fans from northern Illinois.

"It will be good to start with a couple games against the White Sox," manager Phil Garner said. "They're our hated rivals."

Ticket questions: For more information on ticket availability or exchanges, call the Brewers' ticket office at (414) 933-9000 in Milwaukee or toll free at (800) 933-7890.

Copyright 1995
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